A Highland Song review
What is it? A platformer, a rhythm game, a branching story—in other words, another inkle narrative experiment.
Release date December 5, 2023
Developer inkle
Publisher inkle
Reviewed on Radeon 5700 XT, i5-9600K, 16GB RAM
Steam Deck N/A
Link Official site
Experimental, genre-bending approaches to interactive storytelling have always been inkle's stock-in-trade, from the increasingly ambitious multi-part adaptation of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! to the high-seas intrigue of Overboard! As fascinated as I was by each of these singular hybrids, I was always struck by a shared incongruity, the feeling that their mechanical and narrative layers were often at odds with each other. Incorporating elements of platforming, survival, and rhythm games, A Highland Song is arguably their most multi-faceted work yet. Can those elements blend into a coherent whole?
Moira McKinnon has never been to the sea. She does not get along with her mother who insists she cannot go to school because she wouldn't fit in. Her father has been absent for all her life and her little brother is a bore. So when Uncle Hamish, a kooky lighthouse-keeper who regularly mails her postcards with fanciful stories about heartbroken selkies and furious giantesses, asks her to visit in time for Beltane—the Gaelic May Day—she does what any restless teenage girl would do in her place. She hurriedly packs a knapsack, hurls a farewell insult to her mother, and sets off across a horizon of ever-rising hillcrests.
A Highland Song makes for a breathtaking first acquaintance. The Scottish scenery is vividly painted in the earthen browns and luscious greens of pine forests, and later, when the peaks get higher and the temperatures lower, with the harsh whites of a sudden
Read more on pcgamer.com
